In my opinion there really isn't one right answer here, everyone uses their oven a bit different and this is a case where form should match function. As everyone active in this thread probably knows dome height effects door height directly. If you plan to use your oven to cook something large, you need to worry about door height first then bring the dome height into ratio. Others, like myself, are only worried about pizza and will make sacrifices in other area for the pizza cooking performance they want. If this is you I strongly believe you should start with dome height and match it to the style of pizza you plan to cook most, or are most concerned about producing. Dome height will effect the maximum hearth temperature where your oven will cook the top and bottom of the pizza evenly. A lower dome oven will produce even bakes at a higher temperature then a higher domed one. That doesn't mean you can't cook faster baked higher temperature pizzas in a higher domed oven, it just means it will be harder, and you will have to give the pie more attention and manipulation. I'd personally rather build the oven I want in the first place.

The "low vault" ceiling is exactly what you want for Neapolitan pizza.

I agree completely, but I personally would not consider 21.25" or 90% of the radius to be a low vault. The oven in that video has a standard cast iron door that all the ovens in Naples use, 22cm or 8.66 in. and probably has a dome under 14 inches.

I noticed the same thing. At the start of the video you see that he has very little open flame in the oven. The first trick he uses to overcome this is to put a turning peel full of wood chips onto the fire. That gives a quick but short lived burst of open flame and top heat. He then domed the pie for that last little bit to top heat.

From what I've been told Da Michele sells up to 250 pies an hour at peak times and 1000 a day. You aren't always gonna have perfect oven situations in those conditions no matter what oven you use, so you gotta know the tricks to make it work.

So This past weekend we poured the structural hearth. FB boards arrived as well as the Ceramic Blanket. Measured the interior oven space ,minus the width of the bricks on each side and have a 32" interior circumference..I hope I don't sound really silly now but I need someone to clarify how I will come to an 18"
dome height when constructing the courses, is there a formula to use?
I am attatching some build pics!

Click on the blue link in my signature and read down to the list of links to some of the best recent builds. The first four or five builders included some kind of drawings and/or pictures of templates and Hendo tools in their threads.... Studying those build threads should get you to your next step. Keith Wiley's thread has what you're asking for in the 119th post in the first link.

I looked at the links you posted... I'm a little intimidated by the beautiful masonry work some of these earlier builders accomplished.. yours included.. I have a small tile saw... not the HF saw.. but the HD saw.. and my angle grinder..I still don't get how I will determine my IT to fit my oven..
Any suggestions.. explanations?

I looked at the links you posted... I'm a little intimidated by the beautiful masonry work some of these earlier builders accomplished.. yours included.. I have a small tile saw... not the HF saw.. but the HD saw.. and my angle grinder..I still don't get how I will determine my IT to fit my oven..
Any suggestions.. explanations?

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